Marilyn Ress, who died in Wine Country fire, remembered...

1of25Marilyn Ress died in the Tubbs Fire that tore through the Journey's End Mobile Home Park in Santa Rosa, Calif., on Monday, Oct. 9, 2017.Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle

2of25Flipped cars are seen on a property on Dogwood Drive in the Coffey Park neighborhood in Santa Rosa, Calif., on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2017. A flipped car sits next to him in front of the residence. The cars were flipped in the Tubbs fire.Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle

3of25In early October 2017, wildfires devastated communities northern California, including Napa, Lake and Sonoma counties. See the faces of those we've lost >>

4of25Karen Aycock, 54Aycock loved animals, perhaps more than people, her friends said. “Even if she knew there was a fire, she more than likely would have perished trying to rescue them,” said Chad Hinden, Aycock’s friend and former roommate. “She wouldn’t leave the house without her animals.”Read morePhoto: Michelle Kirk

5of25Carmen Caldentey Berriz, 75Mrs. Berriz died in the arms of her husband, Armando, as they clung to each other in the swimming pool of their rented house in Santa Rosa. Mrs. Berriz had been vacationing with her family at a home on Crystal Court when they were awakened by the fire, jumping into the pool with her husband to escape the flames. Mr. Berriz survived with severe burns.Read morePhoto: Courtesy Berriz family

6of25Roy Howard Bowman, 87Mr. Bowman served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was a soil analyst for the federal government before retiring.Read morePhoto: Courtesy Felice Lechuga-Armadillo

7of25Irma Elsie Bowman, 88Mrs. Bowman loved to bake and took an interest in everyone around her. “Irma taught my sisters and I how to cook, how to go shopping, how to be wise with our money,” said friend Lechuga-Armadillo.Read morePhoto: Courtesy Felice Lechuga-Armadillo

8of25Sally Eaves Lewis, 90Sally Eaves Lewis, 90, independent businesswoman, formidable fisher and hunter, and mother of two, spent much of her life at her home on Soda Canyon Road in Napa. On Oct. 8, however, the fires roaring across the region moved too fast. Ms. Lewis was killed, along with her caregiver, Teresa Santos, 50.Read morePhoto: Courtesy of Windermere and Marlon Tirados

9of25Arthur Tasman Grant, 95Mr. Grant died with his wife, Suiko, early Monday when the Tubbs Fire tore through northern Santa Rosa. Daughter Trina Grant said her father had served as a lieutenant in the Navy and trained as a fighter pilot in World War II. After the war, he flew for Pan Am as a commercial pilot and retired after 25 years of service.Read morePhoto: Courtesy Trina Grant

10of25Suiko Grant, 75Mrs. Grant died with her husband, Arthur, when they were unable to escape their home in the Mark West Springs Road area of Santa Rosa. The couple had met in Honolulu when Mr. Grant was flying as a commercial pilot for Pan Am. “It was a true love-at-first-sight story,” said their daughter Trina Grant.Read morePhoto: Courtesy Trina Grant

11of25Donna Halbur, 80Mrs. Halbur was found with her husband, LeRoy, in their parked car, trapped in the garage of their charred Sonoma home. The couple had been married for 50 years, and is survived by a son, Dave, and their grandchildren.

12of25LeRoy Halbur, 80Mr. Halbur died with his wife, Donna, as they attempted to flee their Sonoma home. A retired accountant, Mr. Halbur helped found the Catholic charitable organization St. Vincent de Paul in Sonoma County in 1968. He was a warm, compassionate man with a sense of humor.Read morePhoto: Courtesy of the family

13of25Christina Hanson, 27Ms. Hanson had faced many challenges in life, including being born with a spinal birth defect that limited her mobility and losing her mother at age 9. Despite her hardships, Ms. Hanson was “a very happy, social and positive person,” said her stepmother, Jennifer Watson.Read morePhoto: Courtesy: Brittany Vinculado / /

14of25Josh Hoefer, 27

Mr. Hoefer died after suffering an asthma attack triggered by the smoke from the Wine Country wildfires. Mr. Hoefer, she said, had tried to call his physician for help, but his doctor’s office had burned down. The nearest hospitals had been evacuated, and the roads to the other medical centers were difficult to traverse. In a last-ditch attempt, Mr. Hoefer went to a nearby pharmacy, but could not find the help he needed there either.Read morePhoto: Courtesy, Heather Ballenger

15of25Veronica McCombs, 67McCombs died in her home on Mark West Springs Road early Oct. 9, unable to escape the flames of the Tubbs Fire, despite repeated efforts by family to come and retrieve her. “She devoted her life to the love and care of our family and her community,” son Branden McCombs said.Read morePhoto: Courtesy McCombs family

16of25Carmen McReynolds, 82McReynolds was an intellectual whose pursuits reached far beyond her medical textbooks and into the expanses of the American West, where she grew up. “She was a great sister,” Janelle McKinley, 78, of Nevada City (Nevada County). “She was like a third parent and a best friend."

17of25Garrett Paiz, 38Paiz died when the private firefighting water truck he was driving careened off the steep Oakville Grade road in Napa County near Highway 29 around 7 a.m. on Monday October 16, 2017. Officials said it wasn’t clear what caused the accident, but fatigue from long hours of working the fire may have been a factor.Ream morePhoto: Courtesy Paiz family / Courtesy Paiz family

18of25Lynne Powell, 72Mrs. Powell was a musician and dog lover who had recently survived a grueling battle with mouth cancer. “She always had my back,” said her husband, George. “She tried to make life OK for me, regardless of what she was going through.”Read morePhoto: George Powell

19of25Charles Rippey, 100Mr. Rippey was found with his wife, Sara, in the charred ruins of their Westgate Drive home in Napa. Mr. Rippey was a World War II veteran, later working for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company and Norris Industries in Brea (Orange County). He and his wife had grown up together in Wisconsin, and had lived in Napa for 35 years.Read morePhoto: Charles Rippey, Courtesy Michael Rippey

20of25Sara Rippey, 98

Mrs. Rippey was found with her husband, Charles, in what was left of their Napa home. The couple celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary in March, and over the years was often spotted at the Napa Valley Country Club playing tennis and golf. Sara and her husband are survived by five children, 12 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.Read morePhoto: Sara Rippey

21of25Sharon Robinson, 79Robinson was was identified as one of the victims of the Tubbs Fire. She had gone missing after the fire devoured her home on Donner Drive in the Riebli Road area of Santa Rosa early Oct. 9.Read morePhoto: Courtesy: Cathie Merkel / /

22of25Kai Shepherd, 14, (left) Redwood Valley and Kressa Shepherd, 17 (right)Kai Logan Shepherd was an energetic and athletic 14-year-old who’d befriend anyone. But Kai was unable to escape the flames of the Redwood Valley fire as it ripped through his neighborhood. His sister, Kressa, who was badly burned, died three weeks after the wildfires according to a family member.Read more herePhoto: Irma Muniz/AP

23of25Michael Dornbach, 57Dornbach loved the rugged, rolling hills of northern Napa County — the quiet, the isolation, and the way the stars shone bright at night, piercing the sky between the dark cover of oak and laurel trees.Read more

24of25Valerie Lynn Evans, 75Mrs. Evans was known for her fierce love of animals. She kept horses, goats, dogs, a mule and a steer at her house on Coffey Lane in Santa Rosa. “We knew her as the horse lady,” said Tracy Long, who was Mrs. Evans’ neighbor for 25 years.Read more

During the holidays at the Mayette Apartments in Santa Rosa, Marilyn Ress went door-to-door to find out which of her fellow residents had no place to go for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner.

She’d bring the list to her best friend, Cynthia Conners, who would start cooking. Then when the day came, Ms. Ress would put on an apron with hearts on it, wrap individual dinner plates in foil and make deliveries to anyone who was home alone.

“She’d give them a meal, and she’d give them a hug,” Conners said. “She was ecstatic and proud.”

Prouder still that after 15 years in the apartment complex, Ms. Ress saved enough to buy her own home in the Journey’s End Mobile Home Park on Flamingo Road. She moved in with her two cats and her vast collection of Avon figurines about a year ago, and this is where Ms. Ress was found after the Tubbs Fire swept through, lying within the frame of what had been her bed.

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Ms. Ress was 71 and had lived in Sonoma County her entire life, said Conner. Born Marilyn Carol Ress, she grew up in rural Penngrove and attended Petaluma High School, Conners said. She never married and had no direct descendants.

“She was like an angel on Earth,” said Conners, who had known Ms. Ress since the 1970s when Ms. Ress worked as a certified nurse assistant. Later, she became a private caregiver and served the infirm until she developed her own health issues.

Ms. Ress had Graves’ disease, which slowed but did not stop her. Ms. Ress did not drive, so Conners would take her to the grocery store.

“If she saw people struggling, she would say, ‘Here, use my ATM card,’” Conners said. On the way home, they would stop at See’s Candies in the Montgomery Village Shopping Center.

“Her favorite sample was Rocky Road,” said store manager Susan Murphy. “She would come in and chitchat and buy gift cards for her bus drivers and peanut brittle for her friends. We are going to miss her so much.”

A year ago, Ms. Ress fell in her mobile home. It was during a bad winter cold snap and, when Conners could not reach her by phone, she went to Journey’s End to find Ms. Ress on the floor unable to get up.

She had been there for four days, her body temperature had dropped, and she was in a semicoma when she was rushed to the hospital.

“Doctors didn’t think she’d make it, but knowing Marilyn, she pulled through,” Conners said. “She had the greatest attitude and the biggest heart of anyone I ever knew.”

Sam Whiting has been a feature writer at The San Francisco Chronicle for 30 years. He started in the People section, which was anchored by Herb Caen's column, and has written about people ever since. For five years he had a weekly Sunday magazine column called Neighborhoods. He currently covers art, culture and entertainment for the Datebook section. He walks a minimum of three miles a day in San Francisco, searching out public art and street art for posting on Instagram @sfchronicle_art.